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l'l<ESEXTi:n BY ■' 



GEN. ROBERT E. LEE 



COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS 

BEFORE THE 

NEW YORK SOUTHERN SOCIETY 

ON THE 

Anniversary of the Great Commander's Birth 
January 19th, 1906 

BY 

Dr. JOHN A. WYETH. 



(In the New York Sun of Sunday, January 21st, 1906, 

which published the address, was given the 

following notice.) 

Night before last the Southerners in New York— their 
name is legion, and a loyal legion they are— celebrated 
General Robert E. Lee's birth. We print on 
another page the address in which Dr. John A. Wyeth 
attempted to measure, in the light of recent and 
contemporaneous opinion, the steadily growing admir- 
ation in which others than Southerners hold the memory 
of this great Virginian and good man. The historical 
estimate of Lee's character atid career, as distinguished 
from either the passionate eulogy of fellow partisanship 
or the prejudice of sectional hatred, is fast being 
formulated. To this process Dr. Wyeth's sympathetic 
addres<:, with its most interesting exhibits, is an 
important contribution. 



GEN. ROBERT E. LEE. 

COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESS 

BEFORE THE 

NEW YORK SOUTHERN SOCIETY 

ON THE 

Anniversary of the Great Commander's Birth 
January 19th, 1906 

BY 

Dr. JOHN A. WYETH. 



(In the New York Sun of Sunday, January 21st, 1906, 

which published the address, was given tlie 

following- notice.) 

Night before last the Southerners in New York— their 
name is legion, and a loyal legion they are— celebrated 
General Robert E. Lee's birth. We print on 
another page the address in which Dr. John A. Wyeth 
attempted to measure, in the light of recent and 
contemporaneous opinion, the steadily growing admir- 
ation in which others than Southerners hold the memory 
of this great Virginian and good man. The historical 
estimate of Lee's character and career, as distinguished 
from either the passionate eulogy of fellow partisanship 
or the prejudice of sectional hatred, is fast being 
formulated. To this process Dr. Wyeth's sympathetic 
address, with its most interesting exhibits, is an 
important contribution. 



L4W' 



PRESS OF 

UHZ a. COMPANY, 

2* BROADWAY, 

NEW YORK. 

Gift 
Author 
(Person) 

IT J '05 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. 



The South may claim with pardonable pride that 
it furnished not only the President of each of the 
divided sections in the struggle for the establishment 
of a separate Confederacy, but the great central figure 
of the civil war for the North as well as for the South. 
History will accord that Abraham Lincoln was the 
one conspicuous figure on the side of the Union, and 
for the South none will challenge that claim for L,ee. 
They were, moreover, representatives of the widely 
divergent classes of our section, the plebeian and the 
patrician. The story of Lincoln might well be classed 
with 

"The short and simple annals of the poor," 

while Lee came straight from the cavaliers and their 
descendants, the wealthy cultured aristocracy of 
Virginia. "His father. Colonel Henry Lee, better 
' known as "Light Horse Harry" was the beati sabreur 
of the American army in the War of Independence, 
and it was he who proclaimed George Washington as 
"First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of 
his countrymen." 

Upon his mother's side he claimed the lineage of 
the Carters of Shirley. Born on January 19th, 1807, 
his childhood and youth were passed in the cultivated 
circles of the tidewater region of Virginia. At the 
age of 18 he entered West Point and completing the 
course of study without a single mark of demerit he 
graduated second in a class of forty-six. For several 
years he served in the Engineer Corps constructing 



4 GENERAI, ROBERT E. LEE 

coast defenses, and for a part of this time in charge of 
the astronomical department of the Government. In 
1832 he married the daughter of George W. Parke 
Custis, the adopted son of Gen. Washington, and later 
was made Captain on the staff in the Mexican war. 

Of all the brilliant reputations among the younger 
group of officers which were won in that campaign 
Lee's was the most conspicuous. Upon him the 
Commander-in-Chief leaned as upon no other. At 
Cerro Gordo he was brevetted Major for exceptional 
gallantry. At Contreras and Cherubusco he was 
officially proclaimed for meritorious conduct, and on 
account of a wound received in the assault on 
Chapultepec, September 13th, 1847, he was given his 
promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel. It was at Contreras, 
when the army was baffled, that the quick eye of Lee 
discovered, by a daring reconnaissance, a line of 
approach hidden from the enemy by which the position 
might be taken. This the Commander in Chief of the 
army characterized as ' 'the greatest feat of physical 
and moral courage performed by any individual dur- 
ing the entire campaign." 

In his official report Gen. Scott said: "I am 
compelled to make special mention of Capt. R. E. 
Lee, engineer. He greatly distinguished himself at 
the siege of Vera Cruz, was indefatigable during these 
operations in reconnaissances, as daring as laborious, 
and of the utmost value. Nor was he less conspicuos 
in planting batteries and in conducting columns to 
their stations under the heavy fire of the enemy. ' ' He 
further says: "Capt, Lee, so constantly distinguished, 
also bore important orders from me, until he fainted 
from a wound and the loss of two nights sleep at the 
batteries." 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 5 

After the Mexican war he was appointed, in 1852, 
Superintendent of the Military Academy at West 
Point, and in 1855 Lieutenant-Colonel of the Second 
Cavalry, under Col. Albert Sidney Johnston. In 1859 
he was directed by the President of the United States 
to arrest John Brown and his followers in their 
murderous invasion of Virginia, and on March loth, 
1861, he was appointed Colonel in the United States 
army . 

When the Southern States were seceding and war 
seemed inevitable, upon the recommendation of Gen. 
Scott, then Commander in Chief, President Lincoln 
offered Lee the command of the armies of the Union. 
Virginia had not yet seceded, but Lee, looking into the 
future and feeling assured that his native State would 
upon any act of aggression make common cause with 
the other Southern States, declined the tempting offer. 

In a letter written April 20th, 1861, he made that 
never to be forgotten declaration: "With all my de- 
votion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and 
duty as an American citizen, I have not been able to 
make up my mind to raise my hand against my rela- 
tives, my children, my home. Save in defence of my 
native State, with the sincere hope that my poor 
services may never be needed, I hope I may never be 
called upon to draw my sword." 

When at length hostilities began and Virginia 
took her place in the Confederacy the people of the 
Old Dominion with one voice turned to him as com- 
mander of her army . Then : 

"Forth from its scabbard, pure and bright, 

Flashed the sword of Lee ! 
Far in the front of the deadly fight, 



6 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

High o'er the brave in the cause of Right, 
Its stainless sheen, like a beacon light, 
lycd on to victory. 

Out of its scabbard! Never hand 

Waved sword from stain as free. 
Nor purer sword led braver band, 
Nor braver bled for a brighter land, 
Nor brighter land had a cause so grand. 

Nor cause a chief like Lee! 

The stor)^ of his military career is practically the 
story of the Army of Northern Virginia, and it reads 
more like romance than history. Through four years 
of the bloodiest war known to history at that time 
that army, composed of the flower of Southern man- 
hood, under its matchless leader, made a record of 
victories never surpassed in the annals of warfare, a 
record which we of the South and our children's 
children to the remotest ages should claim as our 
proudest heritage. 

He assumed command of this arm)^ in June, 1862, 
when McClellan was immediately in front of Rich- 
mond. On June 26th, with an army inferior in num- 
bers and equipment, he attacked the forces of 
McClellan in their intrenchments and for seven days 
the bloody conflict raged, until McClellan took refuge 
under the protection of his gunboats at Harrison's 
Landing. This army defeated, Lee turned upon a 
second larger than his own, marching upon Richmond 
from another direction. 

By one of the most brilliant and daring move- 
ments in the history of wars Lee, with his able 
Lieutenant, Jackson, routed Pope's army at Groveton 
and Second Manassas and drove him for safety under 
the protection of the fortifications at Washington. 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 7 

McClellan had been removed for his defeat and Pope 
followed in his train. Disregarding both of these de- 
feated armies, Lee moved rapidly into Maryland, 
captured Harper's Ferry and its large garrison on the 
way and fought at Antietam on September 17th, 1862, 
the bloodiest battle of the civil war. McClellan, who 
after Pope's defeat had been reinstated in command, 
was again removed for failing to inflict a crushing 
defeat upon Lee, and Burnside was made Commander 
in Chief of the Army of the Potomac. 

In December of that year this same army of Lee 
signally defeated the army of Burnside at Fredericks- 
burg. Burnside was removed and Gen. Hooker placed 
in command. In May, 1863, Hooker marched on 
Richmond, having issued a general order in which he 
said that the Confederate army must "either inglori- 
ously fly or come out from behind its intrenchments, 
where certain destruction awaited it." A few days 
after this announcement was made, Hooker's army 
was surprised and attacked by Lee and Jackson 
simultaneously in front and rear at Chancellorsville 
and overwhelmed, fleeing in the greatest disorder from 
the field. Lee then invaded Pennsylvania, where at 
Gettysburg after three days of bloody conflict, unable 
to carry the Federal position, he remained twenty -four 
hours in line of battle with his army in their imme- 
diate front inviting attack and then withdrew without 
interruption to Virginia. 

It was in 1864, in the campaign from the Wilder- 
ness to Petersburg, that the star of Lee reached its 
zenith. Under his leadership the Army of Northern 
Virginia up to this time in offensive warfare had held 
every battlefield upon which it had fought with the 
exception of Gettysburg and Sharpsburg or Antietam, 



8 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

and upon these fields, although it failed to beat the 
army pitted against it, it stood in battle array on each 
occasion for twenty-four hours, was not attacked and 
marched away unmolested. 

He was now to show that in defensive fighting he 
was a greater master of the art of war than in his 
offensive operations. Grant, with the largest army 
ever marshalled upon this continent under a single 
commander, with unlimited resources of men and 
money, with the world to draw upon for all that was 
most useful in destructive warfare, advanced upon 
this army of Lee wanting in everything but valor, and 
so decimated that as Grant expressed it "it had robbed 
the cradle and the grave" to fill the gaps between the 
veterans that still survived. There follow^ed from 
May 5th, 1864, in the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania 
Court House, at Cold Harbor and the North Anna a 
series of conflicts so frightful in their havoc that the 
history of this campaign might well be written in 
blood. 

The most recent, and in my opinion the most 
reliable histor}'- of the United States, written by James 
Ford Rhodes of Boston, a conscientious student, a 
capable analyvSt and just recorder, says: "Grant's 
loss from May 4th to June 12th in the campaign from 
the Rapidan to the James was 54,929, a number 
nearly equal to Lee's whole army at the commencement 
of the Union advance. The confidence in Grant of 
many officers and men had been shaken." 

At Spottsylvania Nicolay and Hay, authors of 
the Life of Lincoln, say "Grant was completely 
checkmated." 

That this is true is evident from the fact that 
turning aside from the direct route to Richmond, with 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 9 

Lee's army in front of him, which army he announced 
in the beginning of the campaign as his objective, he 
marched toward the James River, which he crossed in 
the effort to capture Petersburg by surprise. 

The army of Lee was, however, at Petersburg in 
time, and there held Grant at bay for nine months of 
the summer and winter of '64 and '65. 

As far as the Confederates were concerned, the 
annals of the siege of Petersburg might well be termed 
the annals of starvation, exposure and misery. True 
to its colors, the army of Lee was starving to death. 
The Commissary General reported that "the Army of 
Northern Virginia was living literally from hand to 
mouth." Beef sold for $6 per pound and flour at 
$1,000 a barrel. At one time, pleading with his 
Government for food, Lee said that for three days his 
men had been in line of battle and had not tasted 
meat. 

In the early spring of 1865, after nine months of 
persistent effort Grant with 113,000 men, well fed, 
clad and armed, broke through the lines defended by 
Lee's force of 49,000 veterans, half starved, ragged 
and most of them shoeless. 

Then came the end at Appomattox, where on 
April 9th, 1865, the remnant of this once magnificent 
army, now numbering less than 28,000 (of which only 
15,000 were carrying arms) surrendered, and the 
Confederacy was no more. 

Upon this world's stage no more pathetic scene, 
no more heroic incident has ever been witnessed. 
With what pride the generations yet unborn shall 
claim descent from those who, true to their sense of 
duty, which Lee himself said was "the sublimest word 
in the English language," fought under the banner of 



lO GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

this immortal soldier and died on those victorious 
fields, or surviving, stood true to his colors at 
Appomattox. 

In his farewell address to his army he said: ' ' You 
will take with you the satisfactton that proceeds from 
the consciousness of duty faithfully performed; and I 
earnestly pray that a merciful God will extend to you 
His blessing and protection. With an unceasing 
admiration of your constancy and devotion to your 
country and a grateful remembrance of your kind and 
generous consideration of myself, I bid you an affec- 
tionate farewell." 

Soon after the surrender he accepted the presi- 
dency of Washington College at Lexington, Va. He 
had refused large profi"ers of money for his services or 
the use of his name for various enterprises. He de- 
clined them all, saying he felt it his duty to live with 
his people and to endeavor in educating the j^outh of 
the South to do all in his power to aid in the restora- 
tion of peace and harmony and the acceptance of the 
policy of the State or general Government. 

Though war in all ages and with all people 
arouses that which is worst in human nature, and 
though bloodiest and bitterest is internecine war, it 
still seems difficult to believe even after the lapse of so 
short a time as forty years that for the part this noble 
man took in obedience to his conviction of duty 
Andrew Johnson, then President of the United States, 
obtained his indictment for treason. Against this un- 
warranted and ignoble act the great soldier Grant 
arose and stayed the hand of malice and persecution. 
It seems equally incredible to conceive that within 
two months of the death of Lee, which took place on 
October 12th, 1870, speaking to a resolution which 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE II 

had for its object the return of the estate of Arlington 
to the family of Lee, Charles Sumner said in his place 
in the Senate: "Eloquent Senators have already 
characterized the proposition and the traitor it seeks 
to commemorate. I am not disposed to speak of Gen. 
Lee. It is enough to say that he stands high in the 
catalogue of those who have imbrued their hands in 
their country's blood. I hand him over to the 
avenging pen of history. 

As man and soldier "the avenging pen of history' ' 
has already written this of Lee: In nobility of 
character, in moral grandeur, attested by his human- 
ity, he lived "the model for all future times." In the 
annals of war his place is with the greatest. 

What of this charge of treason and what kind of 
traitor was Lee? A distinguished soldier and citizen 
of Massachusetts, Charles Francis Adams, reared in 
the New England school of politics, himself through- 
out the war in the army which confronted Lee, son of 
that Charles Francis Adams who as United States 
Minister to England during the civil war probably 
did as much as any other one man to defeat the cause 
of the Confederacy, grandson of John Quincy Adams 
and great-grandson cf that elder Adams who suc- 
ceeded Washington as President of the United States, 
a man who so differed from Lee in his interpretation 
of the duty an American citizen owes as between his 
State and the central Government that he declared he 
would go against Massachusetts for the Union, has 
written this for history: 

If Robert E. Lee was a traitor, so also and indis- 
putably was George Washington. Washington fur- 
nishes a precedent at every point. A Virginian, like 
Lee, he was also a British subject; he had fought 



12 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

under the British flag, as I^ee had fought under that 
of the United States; when, in 1776, Virginia, seceded 
from the British Empire he went with his State, just 
as L,ee went eighty-five years later; subsequently 
Washington commanded armies in the field designated 
by those opposed to them as "rebels" and whose 
descendants now glorify them as "the rebels of '76," 
much as Lee later commanded and at last surrendered 
much larger armies, also designated "rebels" by those 
they confronted. Except in their otitcome the cases 
were, therefore, precisely alike; and logic is logic. It 
consequently appears to follow that if Lee was a traitor 
Washington was also. 

He further says: 

In him there are exemplified- those lofty elements 
of personal character which, typifying Virginia at her 
highest, made Washington possible. Essentially a 
soldier, Robert E. L,ee was a many sided man. I 
might speak of him as a strategist, but of this aspect 
of the man enough has perhaps been said. I might 
refer to the respect, the confidence and love with 
which he inspired those under his command. I 
might dilate on his restraint in victory; his patient 
endurance in the face of adverse fortune; the serene 
dignity with which he in the end triumphed over defeat. 
But, passing over all these well worn themes, I shall 
confine myself to that one attribute of his which, 
recognized in a soldier by an opponent, I cannot but 
regard as his surest and loftiest title to enduring fame. 
I refer to his humanity in arms and his scrupulous 
regard for the most advanced rules of modern warfare. 

Denying the contention that war must be made 
hell, holding up to execration the authors of the 
bloodiest deeds in history, this generous foe and great 
American said: 

I rejoice that no such hatred attaches to the name 
of Lee. Reckless of life to attain the legitimate ends 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 1 3 

of war, he sought to mitigate its horrors. Opposed to 
him at Gettysburg, 1, here forty years later, do him 
justice. No more creditable order ever issued from a 
commanding General than that formulated and signed 
at Chambersburg by Robert E. Lee, as toward the 
close of June , 1 863 , he advanced on a war of invasion . 
"No greater disgrace," he then declared, "can befall 
the army, and through it our whole people, than the 
perpetration of barbarous outrages upon the innocent 
and defenceless. Such proceedings not only disgrace 
the perpetrators and all connected with them, but are 
subversive of the discipline and efficiency of the army, 
and destructive of the ends of our movement. It 
must be remembered that we make war only on armed 
men . ' ' 

In scope and spirit L,ee's order was observed, and 
I doubt if a hostile force ever advanced into an 
enemy's country or fell back from it in retreat leaving;- 
behind less cause of hate and bitterness than did the 
Army of Northern Virginia in that memorable cam- 
paign which culminated at Gettysburg. 

In dwelling on this theme, in contrast to L,ee's 
humanity may not "the avenging pen of history" 
quote from "Ohio in the War" by the Hon. Whitelaw 
Reid, at this time Ambassador of the United States at 
the Court of St. James's, who in speaking of the 
burning of Columbia wrote: 

It was the most monstrous barbarity of this bar- 
barous march. Before his movement began Gen. 
Sherman begged permission to turn his army loose in 
South Carolina and devastate it. He used this per- 
mission to the full. He protested that he did not 
wage war upon women and children. But, under the 
operations of his orders, the last morsel of food was 
taken from hundreds of destitute families that his 
soldiers might feast in needless and riotous abundance. 
Before his eyes rose, day after day, the mournful 
clouds of smoke on every side that told of old people 



14 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

and their grandchildren driven, in midwinter, from 
the only roofs there were to shelter them, by the flames 
which the wantonness of his soldiers had kindled. 
Yet, if a single soldier was punished for a single 
outrage or theft during that entire movement we have 
found no mention of it in all the voluminous records 
of the march. 

May not this avenging pen of history which 
Sumner invoked, record that order of Gen. Halleck, 
chief of staff and military adviser to President Lincoln, 
which said to Gen. Sherman: "Should you capture 
Charleston I hope that by some accident the place 
may be destroyed, and if a little salt should be sown 
upon its site it may prevent the growth of future crops 
of nullification and seccession," and Sherman's reply 
in his despatch of December 24th, 1864, "I will bear 
in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think 
salt will be necessary. When I move, the Fifteenth 
Corps will be on the right of the right wing, and their 
position will bring them, naturally, into Charleston 
first; and if you have watched the history of that corps, 
you will have remarked that they generally do their 
work up pretty well. The truth is the whole army is 
burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance 
upon South Carolina." 

And may it not transcribe upon its pages that 
other order to his efficient L,ieut. Hunter: "He 
[Grant] further says that he wants your troops to eat 
out Virginia clear and clean, as far as they go, so 
that crows flying over it for the balance of the season 
will have to carry their provender with them. 

Of L,ee as a General, President Roosevelt, in his 
life of Thomas H. Benton, says: 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 



15 



The world has never seen better soldiers than 
those who followed I^ee, and their leader will un- 
doubtedly rank as, without any exception, the very 
greatest of all the great captains that the English- 
speaking peoples have brought forth— and this, al- 
though the last and chief of his antagonists may him- 
self claim to stand as the full equal of Marlborough 
and Wellington. 

From no more capable source could higher praise 
be given. 

In the "Story of a Soldier's I^ife." Field Marshal 
Viscount Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the British 
Army, speaking of the Seven Days battle, says: 

Gen. McClellan's splendidly equipped army had 
been driven from the peninsula and Gen. Pope had 
been made short work of on the Rappahannock . They 
were unable to cope with Gen. Lee's armv, though it 
was far inferior in strength. In fact, the Confederates 
had won all along the line, thanks to the ably con- 
ceived and well calculated strategy of the great 
Virginian leader and the brilliant tactics of Stonewall 
Jackson and other capable soldiers and to the superior 
fighting qualities of their splendid and patriotic rank 
and file. 

That campaign was a masterpiece; both in con- 
ception and execution and did high honor to the 
soldierlike spirit and patriotism of the ill shod, over- 
worked, badly clothed regimental officers and men of 
the Southern army. 

According to my notion of military historv there 
is as much instruction both in strategy and in tactics 
to be gleaned from Gen. Lee's operations of 1862 as 
there is to be found in Napoleon's campaigns of 1796. 
Though badly found in weapons, ammunition, military 
equipment, &c., his army had nevertheless achieved 
great things. His men were so badly shod (indeed, a 
considerable portion had no boots or shoes) that at 
the battle of Antietam Gen. Lee assured me he never 



1 6 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

had more than 35,000 men with him. The remainder 
of his army, shoeless and footsore, were straggling 
along the roads in the rear trying in vain to reach 
him in time for the battle. 

Of this visit to I^ee Gen. Wolseley says: 

As I waited outside of Gen. Lee's tent while his 
aide-de-camp entered to tell him who I was and to 
deliver him a letter from the Confederate Secretary of 
War, I remarked it had the name of a Colonel of some 
New Jersey regiment printed upon it. Subsequently 
I referred to the fact in my conversation with him. 
He laughed and said: "You will find every tent, 
gun, even our blankets, accoutrements and all the 
military equipment we possess stamped with the 
United States initials." Every incident in that visit 
is indelibly stamped on my memory. All he said to 
me then and during subsequent conversations is still 
fresh in my recollection. It is natural it should be so, 
for he was the ablest General and to me seemed the 
greatest man I ever conversed with, and yet I have 
had the privilege of meeting Von Moltke and Prince 
Bismarck. 

Gen. Lee was one of the few men who ever seri- 
ously impressed and awed me with their inherent 
greatness. Forty years has come and gone since our 
meeting and 5^et the majesty of his manly bearing, the 
genial winning grace, the sweetness of his smile and 
the impressive dignity of his old fashioned style of 
dress come back to me among the most cherished of 
my recollections. His greatness made me humble 
and I never felt my own insignificance more keenly 
than I did in his presence. He was then about 50 
years of age, with hair and beard nearly white. Tall, 
extremely handsome and strongly built, verj^ soldier- 
like in bearing, he looked a thoroughbred gentleman. 
Care had, however, already wrinkled his brow and 
there came at moments a look of sadness into his 
clear, honest and speaking dark brown eyes that indi- 
cated how much his overwhelming national responsi- 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 17 

bilities had already told upon him. He was indeed a 
beautiful character and of him it might truthfully be 
written "in righteousness did he judge and make 
war." 

Lieut. -Col. G. F. R. Henderson, professor of mili- 
tary art and history in the Staff College of the British 
army, in his life of Stonewall Jackson, says: 

If the names of the great captains, soldiers and 
sailors be recalled, it will be seen that it is to the 
breadth of their strategical conceptions rather than to 
their tactical skill that they owe their fame. We 
have the strategist, a Hannibal, a Napoleon or a Lee, 
triumphing with inferior numbers over adversaries 
who are tacticians and nothing more. 

In speaking of Lee's audacity in attacking with 
a force inferior in numbers and equipment McClellan's 
thoroughly organized army in their entrenchments in 
the Seven Days battle, he says: 

From Hannibal to Moltke there has been no great 
captain who has neglected to study the character of 
his opponent and who did not trade on the knowledge 
thus acquired, and it was this knowledge which 
justified Lee's audacity. He was no hare brained 
leader, but a profound thinker, following the highest 
principles of the military art. That he had weighed 
the disconcerting effect which the sudden appearance 
of the victorious Jackson, with an army of unkown 
strength, would produce upon McClellan goes without 
saying. 

Again he writes: 

Lee, with his extraordinary insight into character, 
had played on Pope (at Second Manassas) and his 
strategy was justified by success. In the space of 
three weeks he had carried the war from the James to 
the Potomac. With an army that at no time exceeded 



18 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

55,000, he had driven 80,000 into the fortifications of 
Washington. He had captured 30 guns, 7,000 
prisoners and 20,000 rifles. He had killed or wounded 
13,500 Federals, destroying supplies and materials of 
enormous value and all this with a loss to the Confed- 
erates of 10,000 officers and men. 

"If, as Moltke avers, the junction of two armies 
on the field of battle is the highest achievement of 
military genius, the campaign against Pope has seldom 
been surpassed; and the great counter stroke at 
Manassas is sufficient in itself to make Lee's reputation 
as a tactician. Tried by this test alone Lee stands 
out as one of the greatest soldiers of all times. Not 
only against Pope, but against McClellan at Gaines's 
Mill, against Burnside at Fredericksburg and against 
Hooker at Chancellorsville, he succeeded in carrying 
out the operation of which Moltke speaks; and in each 
case with the same result of surprising his adversary. 
None knew better how to apply that great principle of 
strategy to march divided, but to fight concentrated." 

"In this action Lee violated both of the maxims of 
Napoleon — never to divide an army into two columns 
unable to communicate, or to attempt a junction in 
the presence of a concentrated enemy, but Lee knew 
his men. He violated the last section of this maxim 
because he knew Pope, and the first because he knew 
Jackson . It is rare indeed that such strategy succeeds. 
Hasdrubal, divided from Hannibal by many miles and 
a Consular army, fell back to the Metaurus, and 
Rome was saved. Two thousand years later Prince 
Frederick Charles, divided by a few marches and two 
Austrian army corps from the Crown Prince, lingered 
so long upon the Iser that the supremacy of Prussia 
trembled in the balance. It has been remarked that 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 19 

after Jackson's death Lee never again attempted those 
great turning movements which had achieved his 
most brilliant victories. Never again did he divide 
his army to reunite it on the field of battle. The 
reason is not far to see. There was now no General 
in the Confederate army to whom he dared confide 
the charge of the detached wing, and in possessing 
one such general he had been more fortunate than 
Napoleon." 

"It is noteworthy that Moltke once, at Konig- 
gratz, carried out the operation referred to: Welling- 
ton, twice, at Victoria and Toulouse: Napoleon, 
although he several times attempted it, never, except 
at Ulm, with complete success." 

In his "History of the American War," Lieut. - 
Col. Fletcher of England, says: 

The armies ^of Grant and Lee were still in the 
vicinity of Spottsylvania Court House. The former, 
notwithstanding his vastly preponderating strength, 
was waiting reenforcements. The latter, with only 
a small and overworked army to rely on, was expecting 
the arrival of troops from the Shenandoah. 

It must ever remain a marvel how this small 
force, ill-supplied, overworked and harassed by con- 
tinual fighting and marching by night and by day, 
could hold its ground against the almost innumerable 
host m Grant's command. That it did so, inflicting 
losses far heavier than it sustained and creating a 
belief in the mind of the enemy of numbers far larger 
than it contained, has been already shown. 

Two of the three armies of 'Sigel, Meade and 
Butler had been forced to seek shelter behind fortified 
lines, the third had been brought to a halt to await 
reenforcements and the arteries which supplied life to 
the capital of the Confederacy had been preserved. 



20 GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 

Of the movement to the North Anna River in the 
Wilderness campaign he says: "Here L,ee by the 
exercise of consummate generalship foiled his op- 
ponent." And of the final end of Grant's endeavor 
to crush Lee in the campaign he says: "After many 
battles and losses of which few wars can afford a 
parallel and which surpassed in number the whole 
strength of the enemy's force, Gen. Grant had brought 
his army to a position which McClellan had reached 
with far greater ease and far less expenditure of life 
two years previously." 

From the History of the United States by the 
distinguished writer, Mr. James Ford Rhodes of 
Boston, I quote this concerning Lee: 

The Confederates had an advantage in that 
Robert E. Lee espoused their cause; to some extent 
appreciated at the time, this in reality was an advan- 
tage beyond computation. Had he followed the ex- 
ample of Scott and Thomas and remained in service 
under the old flag in active command of the Army of 
the Potomac, how differently might not events have 
turned out. 

Lee, now 54 years old, his face exhibiting the 
ruddy glow of health, was physically and morally a 
splendid example of manhood. Able to trace his 
lineage far back into the mother countr}^ the best 
blood of Virginia flowed in his veins. Drawing from 
a knightly race all their virtues, he had inherited none 
of their vices. Honest, sincere, simple, magnanimous, 
forbearing, refined, courteous yet dignified and proud, 
never lacking self command, he was in all respects a 
true man. Graduating from West Point his life had 
been exclusively that of a soldier, yet he had none of 
the soldier's bad habits. He used neither liquor nor 
tobacco and indulged rarely in a social glass of wine, 
and cared nothing for the pleasures of the table. He 



GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 21 

was a good engineer and under Gen. Scott had won 
distinction in Mexico. The work that had fallen to 
his lot he had performed in a systematic manner and 
with conscientious care. "Duty is the sublimest word 
in our language," he wrote to his son. Sincerely 
religious, Providence to him was a verity, and it may 
be truly said he walked with God. 

A serious man, he anxiously watched from his 
station in Texas the progress of events since Lincoln's 
election . ' 'Thinking slavery as an institution a moral 
and political evil," having a soldier's devotion to his 
flag and a warm attachment to Gen. Scott, he loved 
the Union and it was especially dear to him as the 
fruit of the mighty labors of Washington. Although 
believing that the South had just grievances due to 
the aggression of the North, he did not think these 
evils great enough to resort to the remedy of revolution 
and to him secession was nothing less. "Still," he 
wrote in January, 1861, "a union that can only be 
maintained by swords and bayonets and in which 
strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly 
love and kindness has no charm for me. If the Union 
is dissolved and the Government disrupted I shall 
return to my native State and share the miseries of 
my people and save in defence vvdll draw my sword on 
none." Summoned to Washington by his chief, Lee 
had arrived there a few days before the inauguration 
of Lincoln, and he had to make the decision after the 
bombardment of Sumter and the President's call for 
troops whether he should serve the national Govern- 
ment or Virginia. The active command of the Federal 
army with the succession to the chief place was 
virtually offered to him, but with his notion of States 
rights and his allegiance to Virginia his decision, 
though it cost him pain to make it, could have been 
no other than it v/as. He could not lead an army of 
invasion into his native State and after the ordinance 
of secession had been passed by the Virginia conven- 
tion he resigned his commis.sion and accepted the 
command of the Virginia forces. 



22 GENERAIv ROBERT E. LEE 

Northern men may regret that Lee did not see his 
duty in the same light as did two other Virginians, 
Scott and Thomas, but censure's voice upon the 
action of such a noble soiil is hushed. A careful sur- 
vey of his character and life must lead the student of 
men and affairs to see that the course he took was 
from his point of view and judged by his inexorable 
and pure conscience the path of duty to which a high 
sense of honor called him. Could we share the 
thoughts of that high-minded man as he paced the 
broad pillared veranda of his noble Arlington house, 
his eyes glancing across the river at the flag of his 
country, waving above the dome of the Capitol and 
then resting on the soil of his native Virginia, we 
should be willing now to recognize in him one of the 
finest products of American life. For surely as the 
years go on we shall see that such a life can be judged 
by no partison measure, and we shall come to look 
upon him as the English of our day regard Washington, 
whom little more than a century ago they delighted 
to call a rebel. Indeed in all essential characteristics 
Lee resembled Washington, and had the great work 
of his life been crowned with success, or had he chosen 
the winning side, the world would have acknowledged 
that Virginia could in a century produce two men who 
were the embodiment of public and private virtue. 

"The avenging pen of history" has placed the 
name of Lee side by side with Washington. So writes 
the historian of to-day and so will the future historian 
prolong the noble record. The fame of Robert Lee is 
secure in that last appeal to: 

Time the beautifier of the dead. 

Time the corrector where our judgements err. 

The test of Truth. 



